Chapter 136 2. Defeat Pang Bingxun's puppet army one by one

In order to defeat the various puppet troops led by Pang Bingxun, the 18th Group Army headquarters and the 16th Regiment, 21st Regiment, New 4th Army Division, Weihe Detachment, and Cavalry Regiment of Zhao Chengjin's 4th Army Division of the Hebei-Shandong-Yuan Military Region first initiated the campaign under the command of Zhao Chengjin and Zhang Guohua. Battle of Weinan. In the early morning of July 30, more than 2,000 enemy main forces made a tentative attack on the new 4th road station.Zhao Chengjin immediately ordered the new 4th Route to stand firm and attract the enemy from the front. In addition, most of the 16th and 21st regiments were surrounded from the two wings to the enemy's rear.As a result, the enemy was dizzy and unable to parry in one battle. More than 240 puppet troops were killed and wounded, more than 840 people below the puppet regiment leader were captured, and more than 1,000 rifles and some ammunition were seized.

The victory in the first battle greatly boosted the morale of the commanders and fighters of the Eighth Route Army.After a short rest, they rushed for a long distance and went straight to Jiaohuji, where the headquarters of the Puppet 46th Division was stationed. On the night of July 31, they suddenly surrounded the enemy. Jiaohuji is a relatively large village surrounded by walls and a moat outside the walls.Ever since the enemy entered Weinan, they had lost seven points of courage, and they were even more terrified at night. From a long distance away, they heard the enemy sentry on the fence shouting in surprise: "Who? Password!"

The attacking troops thought they had been noticed by the enemy at first, but when they saw that the enemy was still screaming, they realized that the enemy sentinel was trying to embolden them, so they quietly waded through the outer trench and quickly boarded the wall.By the time the enemy finds out, it's too late. The Eighth Route Army's light and heavy machine guns and mortars fired together, covering the assault troops to quickly occupy the wall and rush into Jiaohuji.The enemies in the village were awakened from their sleep by the sound of guns and guns, and they were at a loss and resisted in a panic.A group of puppet troops rushed to the west gate of the wall, mistakenly regarded the Eighth Route Army troops occupying the west gate as their own, and were disarmed in a daze.

The troops rushing into the village took advantage of the Eighth Route Army's expertise in night combat, melee combat, and street combat. They moved with great speed, boldly interspersed and divided, and used fierce firepower to kill and injure the stubborn enemy.At dawn, a part of the cavalry regiment of the Eighth Route Army also joined the battle. They fought from the south gate to the east gate, and then from the east gate to the west gate. Together with other troops, they quickly wiped out the defending enemy and wiped out more than 800 soldiers from the puppet 46th division. people.

Then, with the vigor of two battles and two victories, the troops suddenly attacked the Puppet Independent 1st Brigade stationed in Wagangji on the night of August 2.By 3 p.m. the next day, the Eighth Route Army wiped out all the enemies, killed and injured more than 600 puppet troops, and captured more than 1,000 puppet brigade commanders and below. After several consecutive victories, the 4th division decided to take a break temporarily to digest the results. Soon, the half-month rest was over, and the troops from Division 4 decided to attack Yuanzhuang next.Yuanzhuang and Dafanzhuang are the concentrated strongholds of Du Shu's remnants of the Puppet 27th Army.

Yuanzhuang and Dafanzhuang are two relatively large villages, about 2 kilometers apart.Yuanzhuang is surrounded by walls more than 3 meters high, and outside the walls there is a moat with a water depth of more than 1 meter.There are two Dazhai gates in the east and west, which are the main roads to enter and exit the village. The enemy's defense is tight and the firepower is strong; there is a small gate in the south, and there is no gate in the north, so the enemy has fewer troops.There are more than 2,300 people from the remnant of the Puppet 46th Division and the Puppet Independent 2nd Brigade stationed in the village.The leader was Li Xudong, commander of the Puppet 46th Division.Du Shu's military headquarters is stationed in Dafanzhuang.

Zhao Chengjin decided: To attack Yuanzhuang, we must avoid the east and west gates of the village, and attack from the south and north sides where the defense is relatively weak. The 16th regiment and the 21st regiment were the main attackers, the 16th regiment attacked the south gate, and the 21st regiment attacked the north. The Xin 4th Road, Weihe detachment and 2 county brigades were responsible for assisting and blocking the fleeing enemy 2 kilometers west of Yuanzhuang. Simon feinted. After the 16th regiment captured the wall, another company was dispatched to block the reinforcements from Da Fanzhuang.The division command post is located in a small village 1 km north of Yuanzhuang.

On August 17, the 4th division held a mobilization meeting in Gaoping Town, where it was stationed, and political commissar Zhang Guohua made pre-war mobilization.Subsequently, the troops moved into the predetermined combat positions on the night of August 18. At 2 o'clock in the morning on the 19th, Chang Zhonglian, the head of the 16th regiment, divided his troops into two groups and approached Yuanzhuang.He took the lead, quietly crossed the chest-deep moat river, set up a ladder and climbed onto the wall. The night was pitch black, Chang Zhonglian walked dozens of steps on the fence, and suddenly came across a puppet sentry.The sentinel asked without raising his head, "What are you doing?"

Chang Zhonglian was quick-witted, and pretended to be an enemy commander: "I am from the headquarters, and I am here to check your defenses." Then he asked about the strength and firepower of this period.The puppet sentry believed it was true and answered politely.While talking, Chang Zhonglian found a group of puppet soldiers not far away paying attention to them, and hurriedly said loudly: "You must guard this section, don't worry about other places, I will check." The soldiers ascended the city. After a while, many troops from the Eighth Route Army came up, and the enemy had already noticed it. They only heard a puppet soldier in the distance say: "The accent you spoke to us just now is wrong. The Eighth Route Army has come up!" With one shot, the bullet hit Chang Zhonglian in the abdomen.

Hearing the sound of gunfire, the troops of the Eighth Route Army who mounted the wall immediately launched a fierce attack.Two soldiers carried Chang Zhonglian down the city wall and carried him to the rear. The remaining soldiers of the 16th regiment rushed up the city wall, quickly occupied important areas, and rushed to the village. At this time, under the cover of firepower, several soldiers from the 21st Regiment also used wooden ladders to build a temporary bridge on the moat, and rushed under the wall, quickly dug a hole in the wall more than 2 meters wide, and pushed the shovel full of explosives into the wall. The car was pushed into the hole in the wall and the fuse was blown. With a loud bang, the wall was blasted open a big gap.Taking advantage of the panic of the enemy, the 21st regiment charged into the village along the breakthrough, and together with the 16th regiment, launched a fierce street battle with the enemy.

Seeing this scene, the cavalry regiments serving as feigned attackers in Yuanzhuangdong and Ximen also put on a real offensive posture, blew the charge horn, and shot bullets towards the enemy on the wall like raindrops.Gunshots and grenades rang out from all directions in Yuanzhuang, and the puppet army did not know how many troops from the Eighth Route Army had come. They quickly retreated to a three-story division headquarters and a two-story brigade headquarters in the village. Du Shu, who was guarding Dafanzhuang 2 kilometers away, heard the battle report, hurriedly gathered all the puppet troops near Dafanzhuang, and personally directed reinforcements to Yuanzhuang.The Eighth Route Army's reinforcement troops immediately went into battle, and the soldiers in the village also changed their strategy. They blocked the puppet army breaking out in Yuanzhuang with a small number of troops, and concentrated most of their troops to counterattack the reinforcements. At around 10 o'clock on the 19th, the Eighth Route Army inside and outside Yuanzhuang fought fierce hand-to-hand combat with the puppet army. The Eighth Route Army, which was good at fighting tough battles, was extremely brave and imposing, and repelled seven charges of enemy reinforcements.The enemy's repeated attacks failed to work, and their vigor has diminished.The Eighth Route Army seized the opportunity and launched a fierce counterattack, and the puppet troops who had been reinforced were defeated and fled.A part of the Eighth Route Army Cavalry Regiment chased after him for a while, and the reinforcements fled to Dafanzhuang and never dared to come out again. At this time, most of the besieged and puppet troops in Yuanzhuang had surrendered in despair.Zhao Chengjin asked to concentrate his forces to wipe out the remaining puppet troops in the last two buildings.Under the fierce attack of the Eighth Route Army, the puppet troops in the building were demoralized and in chaos.The puppet division commander Li Xudong shot and killed two puppet troops, but he couldn't stabilize the morale of the troops.As soon as the time for the general attack came, only a few loud noises were heard, and the soldiers of the Eighth Route Army bombarded with mortars and blasted with explosives, blasting the walls of the building in several places.The puppet soldiers guarding the building raised their hands and handed in their guns.Taking advantage of the confusion, Li Xudong jumped over the wall and fled across the water. The Yuanzhuang battle ended at 3 pm on the 19th, and more than 2,200 puppet troops were wiped out. The 4th division struck while the iron was hot, and launched an attack on Dafanzhuang, where the puppet army's military headquarters was stationed, that night.The defeated general Du Shu and the rest of the puppet army were like frightened birds. They were terrified when they heard the news, and fled in embarrassment to the west of Weihe River without firing a few shots. (Zhao Chengjin: "Recalling the Battle of Weinan") Throughout the Battle of Weinan, the Eighth Route Army wiped out more than 5,600 puppet troops, and recovered and opened up the area south of the Weihe River.